


I'll Find Sleep, I'll Find Peace

by CosmicJourney



Series: I Want To Be Well [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Childhood Trauma, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode s01e07: The Day That Was, Gen, Good Brother Ben Hargreeves, Heart-to-Heart, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Klaus Hargreeves Needs Help, No Incest, Past Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Ben Hargreeves, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Sober Klaus Hargreeves, Suicidal Thoughts, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 01:05:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18728557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CosmicJourney/pseuds/CosmicJourney
Summary: Walking home from the club he just died at with the ghost of his brother is a pretty on-brand experience, as far as Klaus is concerned.He's had enough of thinking and worrying and dealing with past traumas today.  Pogo disagrees.





	I'll Find Sleep, I'll Find Peace

**Author's Note:**

> alternatively titled "klaus is a difficult character to write because he's a fucking drama queen who tells no one anything ever"
> 
> alternatively alternatively titled "everything hurts and nothing is okay but i will attempt to redeem pogo or die trying"

Walking home from the club with the taste of blood in his mouth really isn’t anything new for Klaus. This time is unusual for a couple of key reasons—one, he’s not high out of his mind, and two, he’s not walking back to a shelter or a lover’s house. He’s actually going home.

The back alleys are not the safest place to be at this time of night, not for Klaus’s body or mind. There are always too many temptations in the form of dealers and fellow thrill-seekers. They walk along a well-lit sidewalk instead that is as familiar as it is strange. Klaus hasn’t walked these streets since his childhood, after all, and the names of storefronts ingrained in his memory blur past them as they trod on.

Ben is proud of him, he thinks, at least a little bit, for not giving into temptation and finding a dealer. He glances at his brother, but he’s just staring at him with wide and concerned eyes. He has been since that little mishap when Klaus died and promptly stood back up. Klaus has been trying very hard not to think about it—the disappointment of waking up again might just crush him.

“Maybe we should keep looking for Luther,” Klaus says and stops in his tracks. They are close to the Academy now but guilt and restlessness and a desire not to let his mind wander are gnawing at his overheated skin. His poor dear innocent brother who may or may not have strangled him this morning was wandering the city, drunk and high as a kite, his apelike body on display for all fetishizers to see.

The spirit of an old man that has been following them screaming for the past five blocks trips right through Klaus, then straightens up and keeps on yelling. He raises his gnarled fingers to claw through Klaus’s chest and he has to physically suppress a flinch and shudder in favor of ignoring the irate ghost.

 _“You just died,”_ Ben blurts, and Klaus gets the feeling he’d wanted to say that much earlier. _“I think you need to get home and let Mom check on you.”_

Klaus waves his hand—GOOD BYE—at him. He feels fine, aside from a pounding in his head and the general shittiness that accompanies withdrawal. The worst of that is behind him, he thinks. The nausea is still churning in his gut and he can’t stop trembling and the world is spinning and his skin is on fire but he’s not locked in a closet, so it really could be worse. “That’s really sweet of you but I’m good! I’m fine! Luther, however, is probably not.”

Ben narrows his eyes at him. A car passes them, its yellow headlights cutting through the darkness before disappearing and leaving them again framed in the dim gold of the streetlights. If the driver noticed Klaus, they would have just seen a strung-out junkie talking to himself. _“That may have been true before, but need I remind you that you literally_ just _died?”_

Klaus takes a deep breath of cool, fresh night air. “But _you_ were the one who said I needed to go find him! ‘He’d do the same for you’ and all that!” It’s funny to say out loud so Klaus laughs, but Ben just glares at him, because Ben doesn’t find him amusing on the best of days.

 _“You’re just scared to go back!”_ Ben accuses, stepping forward and jabbing a finger through Klaus’s chest. _“Because_ something _happened, but of course you’re not going to tell me until it eats you alive, like the stubborn bastard you are.”_

Klaus raises his hands in surrender and blinks, a bit taken aback by the outburst. They’ve had this fight before, and quite recently—it had been about Vietnam, of course, and Klaus refusing to divulge what happened in those few hours he was gone. Eventually Ben had managed to pry him open like a clam and get him to talk about Dave and also cry for a good hour or so without saying much of anything.

If that’s what Ben is comparing it to, this whole incident must have been really scary for him. Klaus feels himself melt a bit and he’s sure he’s gazing at Ben like he’s an injured ghost puppy but Klaus’s empathy has always been something too powerful to be contained. “Hey, I’m alright, okay? I’m here, I’m fine, I’m not leaving you.” 

Ben stares at him unblinking for a long, long moment, before he scoffs and turns away. _“You’re un-fucking-believable.”_

The powerful desire to wrap Ben up in a huge hug melts away and is replaced by confusion. Apparently, he’s misjudged the situation. “I’d like to think so, but something tells me you don’t mean it as a compliment.”

Ben won’t even look at him now. He’s just staring straight ahead and shaking his head and Klaus tries really, really hard not to feel too hurt about it. _“Let’s just go home,”_ he insists and continues his way down the street.

Klaus stares after him for a moment, seriously debating whether or not to keep looking for Luther, but eventually heaves a huge sigh and walks quickly to catch up with his brother, passing through the old man’s incorporeal form. There are other ghosts around and they scream at him as he passes. He doesn’t want to be alone with them, without Ben, and Ben knows that and wouldn’t leave him so that means Ben is _really_ pissed for some reason.

They are silent for a little while, the only sound the occasional city noise and the chattering of Klaus’s teeth when he trembles. “I met God and I spoke with Dad,” Klaus says after a while. Pain seizes his chest, and one of his hands clutches the dog tags around his neck. “I’d hoped to see Dave, but, well, God _did_ say She doesn’t like me very much.”

Ben blinks rapidly. He stuffs his hands in the pockets of his hoodie and stares up at the sky—he doesn’t see any stars, Klaus knows, because the city’s light pollution turns even the darkest night purple-gray—and he doesn’t say anything. Klaus watches the shifting shadows of streetlamps and cars play on the sides of buildings. There’s no one out and about at this time of night, at least no one living. The dead don’t cast shadows.

 _“I’m sorry you had to see Dad,”_ Ben says, _“and that you didn’t get to see Dave.”_

“But?” Klaus presses, raising an incredulous eyebrow. He’s amazed that those are the parts Ben has chosen to single out.

 _“_ But _I wish you weren’t so nonchalant about the fact that you died,”_ Ben says, exasperated. They are approaching the Academy now. The huge building takes up the entire block and stands starkly black against the sky. _“It’s like you don’t care and—it worries me. It worries me that you’re sober and still don’t care about your life.”_ He looks at Klaus then with eyes that are too warm, too understanding, and Klaus has to look away. _“And I_ really _wish I didn’t have to get mad at you for you to tell me things, but I know that’s not your fault.”_

Klaus blinks several times to clear the stinging feeling behind his eyes. He doesn’t know what to say to Ben, what sweet words will assuage his worries, and he feels horribly guilty about putting that soft and forlorn expression on his face. This has happened before, of course, Ben confronting him after one of his many Not Very Good Life Choices, but Klaus has always been high enough to deal with it. Now he feels too raw, his emotions too close to the surface, so he elects to say nothing.

There’s a little girl standing beneath the streetlamp in front of the Academy. At first, Klaus thinks she must be alive because she isn’t screaming or even looking at him. But a quick glance at her outfit confirms that she is most certainly not anyone from this century—she’s wearing a torn and bloodied wedding dress, with massive puffs of fabric for sleeves and truly ridiculous amounts of ruffles and lace. She looks up as Klaus and Ben approach. She’s shivering and pale and her eyes are gray.

Klaus stops in front of her for reasons he doesn’t understand. Ben takes a few more steps before he realizes Klaus isn’t following and turns back to stare at him. The little girl is looking at him now and shivering harder. The other ghosts’ voices are pounding in his head but it is the absence of this one voice that has captured his attention. “Hey,” Klaus says as softly as he can manage. “What’s your name?”

She looks so, so scared and sad, and Klaus gives conscious thought to how much he hates his power for the first time in years. The girl gives no indication that she understands him, which isn’t unusual. Klaus has run into many non-English-speaking ghosts. The language barrier usually doesn’t stop them from screaming at him. He looks at Ben, but his brother looks impatient to go inside.

Klaus has met friendly ghosts before, usually ones who have been around for long enough to not be terrified by their predicament but not long enough to go mad with eternity. A couple of them stick out in his memory—a boy who ran beside him in the courtyard when he played outside as a child, a woman who taught him German when he was very young. The friendly ones tended to disappear after a while. Klaus chooses to believe they had finally passed on and were at peace.

Klaus wets his lips and hesitates a moment longer before motioning for the girl to follow him. She stares and shakes but eventually follows him unsteadily through the front gate. Ben looks confused now—it won’t do her any good to be indoors, anyway, she won’t be able to tell the room was warm if she died cold. But Klaus doesn’t acknowledge the strangeness of the situation, just opens the door and ushers both ghosts inside in front of him.

All the lights are on, which is unexpected but delightful. The dead who take up residence at the Academy are much scarier in the dark—not to say that the screaming horde isn’t terrifying now as they realize the object of their hatred has reappeared. They crowd Klaus the moment he steps through the door and he has to physically suppress his full-bodied flinch even as his hands fly to cover his ears. He hates being sober, hates that it’s always a _surprise_ when he’s just as scared of the dead as he’s always been.

It’s made a lot worse by the fact that so many of the spirits who haunt the Academy are victims of his family. He’s never told them _(“You never tell anyone anything!”)_ , but ghosts tend to haunt whoever killed them, and each of his siblings usually have at least a few unhappy visitors tailing them. Actually, screw Ben, there’s no good reason they should know that fun tidbit about their lives. Even if Five’s reappearance has more than doubled Klaus’s entourage.

“Master Klaus?” Pogo calls from the foot of the stairs. Klaus startles, not having seen him past the shouting horde. His father’s old companion looks concerned as he hobbles forth, unknowingly plowing through several incorporeal bodies. “Are you quite alright?”

Klaus is surprised Pogo is still up and about—what time is it, anyway? He’s about to ask when one of the spirits lets out an ear-splitting wail that makes Klaus screw his eyes shut and focus on just breathing for a long moment. “Fine, just fine,” he says, lowering his hands. Ben is glaring at the crowd around them. Even after all these years, he still has the goodness in his heart to be pissed on Klaus’s behalf. 

Pogo is looking at him disbelievingly. The keen stare is nostalgic and agonizing all at once, for reminding Klaus of a childhood lived in fear. “Would you like to try that again?”

Klaus huffs a breathless laugh and suddenly doesn’t know what to say. The dead have begun to drift back a bit, realizing he’s preoccupied with living matters, but the little girl stays at his side. He gives her a quick smile, which she doesn’t return. “Has Luther come back yet?” he asks Pogo suddenly, as much out of genuine concern as desire to _not have this conversation._

Pogo stares a moment longer before shaking his head. “No, not yet. Come sit with me, we can wait together.” He limps to the living room, and Klaus shares a glance with Ben before following close behind.

Klaus collapses dramatically on the couch, immediately regretting it when his stomach roils, and Pogo takes a seat across from him far more gracefully. Ben sits in Dad’s old armchair, still glaring at the spirits who are now crowding around the back of the couch. Dad’s creepy taxidermy stares out from the walls with marble-cold eyes. Klaus really hates this house. He drags his hands down his face, pulling them away just in time to see the dead little girl settle herself down on the couch beside his feet. Klaus closes his eyes and swallows hard.

Pogo clears his throat, and Klaus looks over to see warm, soft eyes considering him carefully. “I’ve been wanting to speak with you alone, Master Klaus.”

Klaus grimaces and scratches at his itchy arms. “My top ten worst conversations have started this way.”

Pogo ignores that and ploughs on. “I’ve wanted to ask your opinion on some rather sensitive matters.”

Klaus blinks and points at himself. “Me? My opinion? Me?”

Pogo’s heavily creased face folds more at that and Klaus wishes he knew how to talk without upsetting people. The old chimpanzee heaves a sigh and adjusts his two-handed grip on his cane before continuing. “I find myself—troubled, by today’s events.”

“Oh?” Klaus sits up, swings his legs over the edge of the couch, and leans forward with his chin resting in one hand. “Do tell.” Ben mutters something about an incorrigible gossip.

Pogo seems begrudgingly amused, though, so he’s done something right. That glimmer of humor is quick to disappear and is replaced by more regret than Klaus thinks he’s ever seen on his teacher’s face. “I fear I have not been kind to you children,” Pogo says, considers, then amends, “perhaps that’s not quite right. I have not been… _honest_ with you children.”

Klaus hums thoughtfully, scratching at his beard. “This is about sending Luther to the moon, right? Let me think about this for a second.” He’s a bit lost, to be honest. People usually don’t ask him his opinion on things, and he’s not exactly at optimal capacity to be giving any kind of live-mending wisdom. He glances at Ben, who mouths two words to him— _be honest._ “I think you were right the first time,” Klaus says. “I think you haven’t been kind to us.”

Instant horror rushes through him, especially when Pogo’s expression clouds with hurt, but he pushes on. “You’ve always been here for us, I mean, as our teacher and as our friend, but when—when you have kids in your care, you need to take responsibility for them. And that means not letting them be hurt. That means standing up to people you may consider friends.” Klaus wipes his sweaty palms on his knees. “I know you meant, like, specifically the moon thing, which obviously happened when we were already adults, but I think the sentiment is the same.”

Pogo is silent and Klaus doesn’t know what to do so he just keeps on talking even though Ben is staring at him like he just sprouted a second head. “Because, like, Luther never—never learned how to say when he was uncomfortable with something, you know? Because Dad molded him into this perfect Number One. And he never learned that he didn’t have to take Dad’s shit. You should have told him, man.” Klaus pauses for a breath and wishes he was somewhere far away and also very high. “You shouldn’t have let that happen to him in the first place.”

Pogo’s face is devoid of emotion when Klaus can look at him again. “And what about you, Master Klaus?” he intones.

Klaus swallows convulsively and picks at his thumbnail. “Yeah, I should have looked out for him too, I should have checked in on him—”

Pogo stamps his cane on the ground hard enough that Klaus flinches but doesn’t look away from him again. “That is _not_ what I meant,” Pogo says lowly, dangerously. “Should I have protected you, too, Number Four?”

Klaus feels—confused, and young, and not at all sure what’s happening anymore. A quick glance at Ben reveals him nodding emphatically but Klaus isn’t quite sure that’s right. “I mean—of course,” he says slowly. “I was a kid, too. He shouldn’t have done that to me. He shouldn’t have made me do that.”

“And I should never have let him,” Pogo sounds older than Klaus has ever heard him. His shoulders are drooping low, his knuckles knobbly on the head of his cane. “I could not foresee the affect his— _abuse_ would have on all of you. Especially you, Master Klaus.” There is a deep, aching pain in his voice, and Klaus wonders how long he’s held onto it. “It has been most painful to see you punish yourself for his wrongdoings.”

Klaus grits his teeth and pinches the bridge of his nose. The ghosts stopped screaming a while ago but he can still hear the echoes in his head and feel phantom hands— _stop._ “That’s not why I—” he groans, throws his head back, “ _you know_ that’s not why I do it. Did it.”

“That’s not what I’m referring to,” Pogo says, and Klaus guesses he’s just doomed to misinterpret what’s being said to him for all eternity. “Why would you let your siblings think the things they do about you, if not to punish yourself?”

Ben is pointing at Pogo— _I told you so!_ —because this is an argument they’ve had many many times over. “They don’t think anything that isn’t true,” Klaus says, the response second nature at this point.

“And you would have me believe that, yes?” Pogo’s eyes are narrow and he sits up straighter. “You would have me believe that you poison yourself for the fun of it, not because you are traumatized and alone and in pain?”

Klaus desperately wants to leave. His knee bounces anxiously and his skin feels flushed with mortification and it’s been a long time since he’s felt so exposed, flayed open for the world to see. He glances at the little girl, still so silent and unmoving, and she looks at him too with wide searching eyes. He doesn’t answer Pogo, because there isn’t anything to say. The uncomfortable, tense prickling of his skin isn’t abating and if anything is getting more intense.

Pogo sighs, and when he next speaks his voice is soft and kind. “What are you seeing now?”

Klaus swallows. He doesn’t want to talk about it. That’s sort of been the truth of his entire existence—bad thing happens? Don’t want to talk about it. Because he doesn’t want to dwell on it, doesn’t want anyone else to, and he knows they wouldn’t understand anyways, and if he tells them about it they might start asking about _that_ and— _stop._

It’s just Pogo. He already knows about _that_ , he’s the only person still alive who does, and he would never use it against him. So he breathes in deep, wishes he was still outside in the cool fresh night, and that his heart would stop racing. “A little girl. She followed me inside. She’s quiet.”

“What happened to her?” Pogo asks.

Klaus’s jaw clenches. He knows exactly what happened to her and he knew it the second he saw her and he _knows_ Pogo will read into it more than he should. But the thing is—Klaus is tired and strung out and weirdly angry and he also _knows_ he’s just a fragile teacup of a person who thinks it might be okay to be honest just this once and risk being _seen_.

He looks at the girl, at her hideous wedding dress, torn straight down the bodice and up the skirt. She was just a child, a baby. “She’s—eleven or twelve, I think. She was a child bride, early eighteenth century, European immigrant. Her husband raped and murdered her the night of their wedding.”

Pogo is deathly quiet and a quick glance at his weathered face reveals a bone-deep sadness that Klaus doesn’t know how to address. The old chimpanzee slouches and shakes his head, as though the weight of what Klaus has said is crushing him. “Such terrible things to see,” Pogo whispers. “Such terrible, terrible things.”

The room is blessedly silent for a while after that save for the occasional scream of a wandering spirit. Ben looks proud and that fills Klaus with warmth. This is probably the most Klaus has ever talked about everything. He feels—lighter, somehow, a bit more stable, speaking with someone who was there through it all, and the horrible anxiety in him dims just a bit.

“Have you made any effort lately to physically conjure the dead?” Pogo asks into the still air.

So much for that that happy weightless feeling. Klaus imagines a bit fancifully that his spirit has been slammed back into his body just like it was a few hours ago. He can’t help the sting of betrayal he feels, and doesn’t really put any effort into trying to suppress it as he glares at Pogo. “Seriously? You’re going to bring _that_ up _now_? After what I just told you?”

“What you just told me is what made me think of it,” Pogo says evenly. Ben looks confused, as he should, because Klaus never told him about _that_ and never planned to. 

“No,” Klaus snaps and stands from the couch abruptly. “We’re not—we’re not going there.” His face is hot and his heart is beating against his chest—like thumping an arm to raise a vein.

“This is why you don’t tell them,” Pogo says, and it’s not a question. “You can confide in your siblings without mentioning that specific incident, you know.”

“I couldn’t,” Klaus grits out. He holds his arms close and digs his nails into his skin, leaving fiery red lines in their wake. He wants to leave his flesh behind here, or maybe his entire body. “It’s all—it’s all connected in my brain and I would freak out and I couldn’t.” Klaus is, always had been, slow to anger, but now he feels like a livewire, all his restless energy much too close to the surface and prickling beneath his skin.

Pogo shifts in his seat and looks thoughtful. Ben’s eyes are flickering between them, which would be hilarious, except any second the dots are going to connect in his mind and he’ll _know._ Klaus wants to be anywhere but here. “Would that be so awful?” Pogo asks. “Do you expect your siblings to judge you or… not believe you?” A ghost screams and it’s all _too much._

 _“Why should they?!”_ It comes out Klaus’s mouth as a garbled scream and he shudders with the emptiness it leaves in his chest, a gaping raw void that only widens when he notices that everyone—living or otherwise—in the room looks deeply shaken. Ben is standing and reaching a hand out to him but doesn’t move any closer and the little girl is staring at him all frightened and innocent and Pogo looks so _sad_ and—Klaus just _snaps._

“Why should they believe me?! Why should they look at me— _me,_ untrustworthy attention-seeking crackhead _fuck-up Klaus,_ and think I’m telling them the truth? They’ve _never_ taken me seriously and that’s _fine_ because I learned not to take myself seriously either but this isn’t—this isn’t a _fucking joke.”_ He takes a breath that rattles like empty cans in his chest and then he just laughs. “And I don’t know how to inform them that I was molested by ghosts as a child without making it sound like a joke!”

Tears stream down his face and his throat feels all clogged and his head hurts and the world is spinning beneath him. He stands there with his shoulders shaking, hugging himself tightly, feeling vicious satisfaction at the horror on the blurred faces around him.

The hot shame that crushes him then is nothing new. Klaus has never been embarrassed by who he is. His sexuality, his gender expression—it’s nothing to be embarrassed of, ever, it’s just who he is, and he’s proud of those facets of himself. He hates that the horrible dark self-loathing he feels is a result of things _done to him,_ things he had no control over. He wants to be numb. He wants to wrap himself in Dave’s arms and never move. He wants to disappear. He wants to stop this torturous cycle of desperately _needing_ to be touched but always flinching away. _God_ , he just doesn’t want to be afraid anymore.

“Just tell them the truth,” Pogo says roughly and with tears in his voice. “Tell them that you see horrible things. Tell them that the dead are always screaming in your ears and will not leave you alone. Tell them that your father locked you in the mausoleum for hours upon hours at a time. Tell them that, once, when you were ten years old, you were so desperate to be free—that you tried to see if you could unlock a new ability, just to satisfy your father’s curiosity.” Pogo pauses and swallows roughly and Klaus is sort of glad he can’t see him past the shroud of tears still obscuring his vision. “Tell them that the spirits hurt you.”

“Tore my clothes off and clawed and bit and groped at everything they could reach, you mean,” Klaus snarls cruelly, because Pogo was _there, dammit,_ he saw the damage the ghosts did to the body of a young boy over the course of _hours,_ how they hurt him in ways that were alternatingly deliberate and desperate. Some of them truly did just want him to pay attention, he thinks, the ones who left shallows scratches on his arms and legs. He cannot begin to fathom the motivations of the others and he does not want to.

Pogo doesn’t respond so Klaus takes the time to swipe away the furious tears from his face. He’s sure his eyes are all swollen, his face red with humiliation, and he hates himself immensely when he is finally able to see the expression on Ben’s face. The dead can’t cry, at least not that Klaus has seen, but Ben sure is doing something similar. He looks so sad and horrified and Klaus didn’t mean to do that, really, the last thing he’s ever wanted to do is hurt Ben.

“I’m sorry,” Klaus says softly in a voice that doesn’t sound like his. “I’m—I’m sorry.”

“Please do not apologize, my dear boy,” Pogo says. “Not for this. Never for this.”

But Klaus doesn’t know what else to say in the aftermath of this cataclysm, when his insides feel all scrubbed raw and voices are echoing in his head. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he whispers like it’s the key to forgetting or maybe to dying and staying dead. He covers his mouth with one hand to stifle the litany of apologies pouring out while the other arm braces around his middle and his back bows and it’s taking all his strength to stay standing.

Pogo is standing in front of him suddenly, his cane discarded in favor of wrapping his long arms around Klaus. Klaus freezes for a moment, his breath stalling in his chest, before his body just kind of bends in half and he’s clinging to long, shaggy fur and shaking apart at the seams. He can’t play off the sobs as anything but the culmination of fear and frustration and embarrassment and he hopes his dignified old teacher doesn’t mind, or at least that he won’t pull away before Klaus is ready.

Pogo’s hands rub soothing circles in his back and he is whispering something in a low, soft voice, and Klaus is trying to listen but his blood is roaring too loud in his ears to make anything out. “I can’t tell them,” Klaus says, muffled in thick fur, and Pogo’s voice stops droning long enough to listen. “I can’t tell them _anything_ ,” and he tries to explain, he _does_ , but all his brain is coming up with is a jumbled mess of _too scared they won’t listen they won’t believe me they’ll laugh they’ll hate me they’ll be sad and then I’ll be sad and then I’ll accidentally tell them everything_ and try as he might he can’t put any of it in an order that makes sense, if any of it could ever make sense at all.

Pogo pulls away and Klaus feels a heart-stopping moment of panic before he realizes his old teacher is just trying to meet his eyes. One long rough hand reaches up to frame the side of Klaus’s face, and he squeezes his eyes shut as he leans into the touch. Kindness has always been so hard to come by. “You do not have to do anything you do not want to do,” Pogo whispers forcefully, “not anymore.”

The swiping of a long thumb along his cheekbone prompts Klaus to blink his eyes open and meet Pogo’s gaze as bravely as he can manage. “I cannot—I cannot pretend to understand what you have gone through,” Pogo says and swallows roughly before continuing. “I only know your life has been far more difficult than anyone deserves, and you cannot—you _must not_ blame yourself. You are so much more than what was done to you.”

Klaus doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t think he can say anything with thirty years of silence lodged in his throat. Ben appears behind Pogo, and Klaus’s eyes flicker up to see him better. His brother looks deeply shaken but—proud, Klaus decides.

“I know you aren’t ready to tell your siblings everything, and that’s fine,” Pogo says, recapturing Klaus’s attention. “But my dear boy, please at least consider telling them about the things you see. Let them understand that your… self-medication was a survival mechanism, and that you will need their help going forward.”

Klaus extricates himself gently from Pogo’s embrace—the contact has become too much, as it always does, even when touch is something he desperately craves. Ben is nodding his agreement with Pogo’s suggestion, but unease claws at Klaus’s stomach. He has no way of knowing if they will believe him. “Maybe,” he mumbles, rubbing his hands across his tired eyes. Crying has exacerbated his headache terribly.

He feels empty. There’s very little left inside him now, it’s all been scooped out and scattered like ashes. He doesn’t feel better, just hollower. What would telling his siblings do in the long run? They wouldn’t be able to keep the ghosts at bay or prevent the nightmares. It would just make them sad—and they’re all sad enough.

Pogo makes his way back over to his chair. Stooping to retrieve his cane makes his joints pop, and he straightens back up with a groan. He turns back to look at Klaus, who hasn’t moved and is again staring at the little girl on the couch. “Why don’t you go get some rest, Master Klaus?” Pogo suggests gently. He looks tired, too, so it’s really just been that kind of night. “I will make sure Master Luther is alright when he makes his way home.”

The idea of trying to sleep is not appealing, and it probably won’t go over well anyway, what with the dead harassing him and no drugs to quiet them. This is undoubtedly the hardest part of getting sober, he’s decided—this, and the waking up from a nightmare and scrabbling for something, _anything_ to take the edge off and coming up empty. He looks at Ben, whose soft smile is the encouragement he needs to at least try and get some rest. Perhaps there would be some benefit in confiding in his other siblings, after all, if it meant they too would look at him so kindly.

“That’s a good idea,” Klaus finally says in response, and he doesn’t make a move towards the stairs before he gets the idea to smile and wave his hand—HELLO—at the little girl. Her eyes go wide and Klaus gets the uncomfortable idea that she hasn’t been able to interpret any of his actions as friendly until this point, that she’s been waiting for him to show her some true marker of kindness. She has not been shown kindness in a very long time, perhaps very rarely even when she was alive.

Klaus’s throat feels tight, so he doesn’t say another word as he pads off to the stairs and up to his room. He hopes the girl stays at the Academy and out of the cold.

**Author's Note:**

> letting go of the blame is easy, the shame not so much, and other things some of my dear friends have struggled with
> 
> please leave a comment, as usual i am no more than a small bird in need of attention


End file.
